Imagine the very first women walking out of a cave.
They're covered in dirt.
Their hair is wild.
Their legs are hairy.
Their eyebrows have never met tweezers.
Their eyelashes are...well...eyelashes.
No one is apologizing.
No one is wondering if they should contour their cheekbones.
No one is asking whether blond is more flattering than brunette.
They're simply...human.
Fast forward a few thousand years.
Now we've somehow arrived at this:
Remove the hair from your legs.
And your armpits.
Your bikini line too.
While we’re at it...let's discuss every other square inch of your body.
Now take all that hair...
...and glue it to your eyelashes.
Perfect.
Now your face.
It looks a little too much like...a face.
Let's cover that.
Hide the freckles.
Blend the pores.
Contour the nose.
Darken the eyebrows.
Add blush.
Maybe draw a new lip line.
Oh...and your hair?
Straighten it.
No, curl it.
Actually, lighten it.
Wait...everyone's going darker now.
Highlights.
Lowlights.
Balayage.
Don't forget the heat protectant.
By the time we're done, the version of you that woke up this morning has almost disappeared.
When this gets discussed in some of the women's circles
Women often tell me,
"But I really do feel better when I have highlights."
Ah, yes - there it is!
Of course you do.
That might be marketing and society’s greatest achievement.
Not just convincing you to buy the product.
Convincing you that your confidence and worth lives inside the product.
Somewhere along the way we learned that our most natural self wasn't quite enough.
That self worth or self love could be purchased.
Applied.
Injected.
Highlighted.
Waxed.
Painted.
Filtered.
Now, it’s important to say
None of this means makeup is bad.
Or highlights are wrong.
Or shaving is the enemy.
Do them.
Don't do them.
I honestly don't care.
What I care about is whether it's a choice...
...or whether we've forgotten there ever was one.
Because there's an immense difference between,
"I enjoy wearing makeup."
and
"I don't feel beautiful / confident without it."
One is expression.
The other is conditioning.
This isn’t an invitation to throw away your mascara.
It's just to become curious.
· · ─ ·𖤓· ─ · ·
Who were you before the world convinced you there was something to fix?
The sooner you begin asking yourself that question, the better. Trust me...that conditioning runs deep.
I'm on the second half of life now, and even after years of first recognizing the conditioning, then doing the work to untangle it and rewire it, it still rears its head from time to time. That's how powerful it is.
So whether you're where I am, or you're decades younger, I want you to know this comes from a place of love.
Woman to woman.
Sister to sister.
Trust me...
You are so incredibly beautiful exactly as you are.
Don't let them convince you otherwise.
Don't let them define your worth.
With love,
Jennifer